Anti-Haul (aka "What I'm Not Going to Buy"), Eighth Edition

How am I up to eight anti-hauls already? I know I like to complain a lot, but man, I can't remember the last time I stuck with a series this long. Maybe it's because this is my birthday month. I'm spending a lot of time telling myself I don't need things instead of justifying it with a shriek of "BUT I'M TURNING 30." Whatever the reason, here's some stuff I'm not buying and why I think you probably shouldn't buy it, either.

1. Frank Body Original Coffee Scrub, $16.95 -- This body scrub was in every skincare instagrammer's millennial pink photo shoots for quite a while before it faded in to temporary obscurity. Now it's making a comeback, and I have to ask: why? The ingredients list is relatively short and is comprised mostly of products you can mix together yourself: sweet almond oil, brown sugar, coffee, vitamin E, salt, and water, plus a couple of other ingredients for fragrance that you can probably just skip. Now, that doesn't immediately turn me off of a product, because a lot of companies do simple better than we can at home, but this is a coffee-based scrub. It's going to make your shower a damn mess. I'm sticking with my St. Ives Apricot Scrub; just be gentle and keep it below the shoulders and you'll be fine.

2. Benefit mini brow products, including Ka-Brow, $12 -- I'm obsessed with minis. They're cute, they're travel-friendly, it's easy to finish them before they go bad, and they can help you discover new favorites at a lower cost. But I can never get the Benefit minis because they always, always, always come in just one shade: their warm medium brown. And when they same warm, my friends, they mean WARM; most of their #3 shades turn bright red on me. Come on, Benefit! Us ashy browed folks want to try your stuff, too!

3. Tom Ford Lip Color, $54 -- I love lipstick, but I start to get a little hairy about spending my money on it when we pass the $25-a-tube mark. It needs to be a damned special formula or shade for me to cough up more, and Tom Ford just doesn't qualify. I've tried several of the shades in the range and am currently trying to finish up a deluxe sample of tube of Indian Pink, and it's...okay. The formula is smooth and creamy, but I get slightly better performance and even better staying power from a MAC Amplified lipstick. And while I understand the argument that luxury products often have unique or especially flattering colors that make the price worth it, I have yet to find a shade like that in the Tom Ford range. There's also the fact that people regularly complain about Tom Ford lipsticks going rancid in record time. If I want to spend my money on a beautifully formulated lipstick with exceptionally beautiful shades, I'll go for Pat McGrath's range...and I'd still be spending less.

4. Urban Decay Backtalk Palette, $46 -- I know it's a bit weird for me to put this here. It's half eyeshadows and all powders, which are not my thing. But I had a moment of weakness in which I almost wanted this palette. Then I talked myself out of it because, hey, not my thing, and decided to talk you out of it because hey, the reviews for this suck. Generally speaking, most people are saying the blushes are beautiful, but the eyeshadows are chalky and/or lacking in pigment. You can detach the middle portion of this palette, too, and I don't get why. It's not in the way, right? Are you taking it somewhere separately without a cover on it? I dunno, it just seems like a great way to ding your products with the corner of the cardboard cover. If you still really want this palette, just wait until it goes for its inevitable sale price.

5. West Barn Co. Soapbrows Kit, $14 -- Capitalizing on trends is Marketing 101, so in theory, this doesn't bother me. But I have to ask: why the Hell would you buy it? You're just getting a basic glycerin soap in a cute tin. It's not even a very large soap: this guy is just 30 grams, while the big bar of Van Der Hagen glycerin soap I tested in my second copying makeup artists video was all of $3 for over 100 grams of product. If you want to keep your soap in a travel-friendly case, you can definitely just cut off a slice of your favorite with a hot knife and put it in to the tin of your choosing.

6. RMS Beauty products in general -- The RMS Living Luminizer is semi-famous in my mind for being the one product I regretted purging, though I eventually got over it and found other highlighters I like more. And I've been attracted to a lot of the ooey-gooey, coconut oil laden items in their range; I have dry skin and I like a natural finish, after all. But this company has officially gone off the deep end, and at least for now, I won't be buying more products. Seriously, if you tell somebody that they can't blend your products properly because "they wear foundation and it's full of chemicals," I'm going to side-eye the fuck out of you. (They deleted this comment, by the way, but you can still read my salty response.)